Orico M.2 enclosure recommended by Linus sucks.

[SkillTim]

In a recent video Linus said this was a good buy for tech people wanting to recover data from an M.2. Alright, something I need now and in the future. I plugged my recently removed Samsung 980 PRO 1TB (Firmware v5) from my PC because it seemed to slow down with the firmware update. I had a back up, I'm not stupid. Placing it in the encosure and plugging in with supplied USB-C cable. It got ~1000MB/s reads and writes in Crystal Disk Mark. Not bad but I guess I should have looked at the spec of the enclosure. I was expecting an NVMe drive that is capable of 7000MB/s to at least have a 20Gb/s interface instead of 10Gb/s (~1000MB/s because of overhead). My Motherboard has USB-C 3.2 2x2 (20Gb/s). I tried it with a USB-A to USB-C cable and it got 462MB/s so nothing is unreasonable for the spec. My motherboard doesn't have Thunderbolt 3 (40Gb/s) so it can't get to that speed either. It will be fine for the price but wish it had USB 3.2 2x2.

 

My main concern was that the drive partitions show up in Disk Management but not in the This PC directory. Formatting the drive in there didn't correct it. I had to delete the partition and then create a new volume to get it to show up in This PC. This is a major problem if half the reason for buying it was to recover data from an existing drive. My first thought was Secure boot blocking it or some other thing like Rapid Storage Technology not being active over USB. Anyway, I feel like this is something Linus and the team should address.

[will0hlep]

Considering the price it’s actually a pretty good deal IMO. (Or at-least it was when I was shopping for a 40Gb/s one recently. They were so expensive I ended up buying one very similar this.)

[Alex Atkin UK]

Considering how few and far between 10Gbit USB devices are, its definitely good for the price.  However I agree its rather concerning if it doesn't show up correctly in Windows.

 

Problem is, NVMe was designed to be a PCIe interface so I'd imagine there is a lot of trickery to convert from USB to PCIe to make this sort of thing work at all and the cheaper the device, the more likely they chose shortcuts to get there.

 

I wonder if the one you bought maybe uses a different controller to what Linus tested?  Sadly another common tactic to keep costs down, no guarantees two different batches are internally the same thing.

 

Though you did say it shows in disk management, did you actually assign drive letters to the partitions?  Its not uncommon for Windows to not do so if its not understanding its an external drive.

[SkillTim]

Thanks Alex. I'll keep the drive letter in mind when putting my next M.2 in there.

[kokosnh]

I don’t understand, you bought a USB enclosure with USB 10Gbps bridge, how in the world you want to get more then that?

I do have a 20Gbps enclosure from orico, and it’s working just fine…

 

and the USB A result is probably because of the USB interface limit, as i have no problem doing 10Gbps on the USB A that is actually USB 10Gbps port. but this true USB A 10Gbps ports are rare. other explanation is that you had second device on the same USB controller if it was true 10Gbps port. 

[tdkid]

i started looking into all m.2 enclourses recently and it looks like they all suck because none of them allow for decent airflow over the SSD. so you might want to take the cover off of it and see what that does for your speeds and everything.

[SkillTim]

tdkid, the kit came with a thermal pad that transfers heat to the enclosure. It got warm but was fine.

 

I can see Orico 20Gbps enclosures for double the price. I assumed the 'trust me bro' guy would have paired a 2500MB/s SSD with a 20Gbps enclosure but no, he wants the clicks so users future Amazon orders will get commission from the dirt cheap purchase. This has been my issue from the start. His videos haven't always been bang for the buck when that's all the information they want from their entertainment.

 

P.S. I didn't click the link in the description.

[Blue4130]

4 hours ago, SkillTim said:

tdkid, the kit came with a thermal pad that transfers heat to the enclosure. It got warm but was fine.

 

I can see Orico 20Gbps enclosures for double the price. I assumed the 'trust me bro' guy would have paired a 2500MB/s SSD with a 20Gbps enclosure but no, he wants the clicks so users future Amazon orders will get commission from the dirt cheap purchase. This has been my issue from the start. His videos haven't always been bang for the buck when that's all the information they want from their entertainment.

 

P.S. I didn't click the link in the description.

Instead of trusting an internet celebrity, why didn't you read even the main description of the product that you were buying. It clearly states if fairly large font that it is 10Gbps.

 

This is 100% a you problem.

[SkillTim]

Ding ding ding. You win.

[shamus20]

i have had good experience with the Ugreen M.2 enclosure we have been selling them for the last couple months at work.

 

personally i own, or have used:

Asus ROG is pricey but works great for long transfers.

Vantec also makes one that works pretty good, but can slow down after an hour due to heat (55-60c).

Elite m.2 enclosure also works pretty good, but the drive was hitting 60-70C after an hour. (replaced with Asus)

 

i tend to use these enclosures for data transfer, so long sustained reads and writes.

i cant remember the exact numbers for the transfer speeds, but the Asus was the fastest out of the 4 enclosures.

 

Edited July 3, 2023 by shamus20
to add more information

[SkillTim]

I think I've worked it out. In the BIOS Intel RST was on and I wasn't able to turn it off, it would come back on after reboot. I had to dig deep and turn off VMD as part of SA configuration. 

 

Whenever a drive is setup with RST enabled it uses virtual drivers to get it working on that machine and that machine only. RST is for old HDDs so I don't know why they allow it to be turned on for NVMe.

[NobleGamer]

If there's a reason to slam the enclosure in the video, which is different from the tool less one you bought, I would criticize it for being confusing on supporting TRIM (their support says no even though the device supports something else that ultimately supports TRIM) and causing drive sleep that could defeat SSD firmware's own garbage collection independent of OS driven TRIM. These two things are issues with other enclosures too though.

[kaefers]

LTT team should make a video about enclosures and chipsets, NVMe, SATA, etc.

Bought a 2.5" SATA enclosure made by Orico recently after reading a review somewhere. Unfortunately received the older model that is apparently still sold alongside the newer model, same looks, different chipsets, one does ~4xxMB/s the other one does 5xxMB/s, ASM225CM vs ASM235CM. Nobody should ever have to unknowingly get stuck with outdated chipsets and performance. Need for force manufacturers and sellers to step-up. 10Gbps, 20Gbps, 40Gbps by themselves just don't say much. 

Very hard to find enclosures with recent chipsets (VL716, VL717, RTL9210B, ASM235CM), most manufacturers and sellers make it difficult to find that info. Fwiw, most manufacturers have barely any idea of good product design in the first place, or so it seems, or one wouldn't get a plastic insert with an aluminium shell where the hot ssd makes essentially no direct contact with the aluminium, but that's a whole other rant. 90% of enclosures have some tool-free design now at the cost of size and cooling. Also almost all enclosures support 9.5mm when most people looking at this topic with any seriousness probably have a 7mm SATA SSD. smh.

[NewMaxx]

For M.2 SATA you want a 10Gbps solution to get the full 6Gbps SATA speeds rather than 5Gbps, e.g. JMS580 over JMS578. Better yet, a 10Gbps chipset that does both SATA and NVMe, like the RTL9210B in Sabrent's enclosure. That particular chipset is probably the best of the 10Gbps options. Realtek has a 20Gbps one out now as well which should be more flexible than the ASM2364.